It's Been a Long Time Coming
by OverlyDramatic
Summary: Dan reminded Blair that you couldn't add three months to an eternity.  On the most important day of Blair's life, Dan waits and ruminates.  Futurefic.


Fluff. Unadulterated, unabashed, unrelenting fluff.

Futurefic. Set between 1 and 5 years from the current season. Ish. Or, you know, whenever the hell you want it to be. LOL.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Leighton Meester or Penn Badgley. Nor, unfortunately, the characters they represent.**

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"Blair, this is ridiculous," Dan called.

His voice felt too large in the dusty office space, so he heaved himself from the leather desk chair and spoke to the door.

"Blair," his forehead pressed against the doorframe, and the sound seemed to hover outside the white painted wood. "We've been here for over an hour."

He didn't need to glance at the chipped grandfather clock collecting dust in the corner; he felt every incremental shift. Time limped along as he memorized everything from the secretary's haphazard desk to the pattern of the faded Oriental rug.

He studied the clock just the same.

_Tick._

The clack of silver and pearls echoing against a desk.

_Tick._

The muffled catch in Blair's throat. Sound conveying meaning through the intervening room. _I'm not the one being ridiculous right now, Humphrey_.

_Tick._

"You'll thank me later, Dan," drifted through the silence.

His heart stuttered unexpectedly; his sigh mingled relief and impatience. And anticipation. There was plenty of that, building in his throat, bubbling into a bumbling speech that would likely pull Blair out of the room and push her out the door.

Dan resumed fiddling with his cufflinks.

When they first arrived—after Blair had swept through the secretary's foyer into the dim-lit office behind, after the echo of the latch had stopped reverberating around his skull—Dan had amused himself by indulging his inner writer. Made his way to the window to study the landscape, her muffled movements providing the most captivating soundtrack he could imagine.

Cobbled road in mild disrepair—

_muffled thump of her shoes dropping, to remain underfoot_—

trees shading the walkway—

_harried hand brushing bangs from bright eyes—_

the creak of the wood-slab gate, not quite latched against a gentle breeze—

_the swish of fabric falling to the floor; no rustle yet of anything sliding to replace it._

And off in the distance, low rolling valleys bright with spring and color and life—

_He remembered the first time—didn't think he'd ever have a memory as vivid as the cream and rose and perfection of Blair in bridal white. Hands on hips as she fussed at an attendant, unaware of him caught motionless in the doorway. His awe was only matched by the sharp bitterness of his realization: "Not for me."_

This time it was.

This time there would be no stumbling in on her, resplendent in white. There would be no arguing himself hoarse as his father, his editor, and Serena fought to make him confront, sweep away, and get the fuck over Blair, respectively.

There was only warmth, and fear, and a memory of the vivacious spark in her eyes as she argued in frenzied French until she had the judge's chambers to herself.

Dan didn't care if Blair wore a dress. He'd happily exchange vows snuggled close on the couch, voices hushed against an air of enchantment and smiling through the softness of two glasses of wine.

But Blair was Blair, and elopement or otherwise, she was not getting married in anything but a wedding gown. And maybe they didn't belong together after all, if he dared suggest something off the rack would do.

Every subtle sound drifting out to him made his heart pound, his thoughts race, his fingers tick nervously against the leg of his suit.

Dan soon abandoned the picturesque view—it was too much. He couldn't stop the writer in him from penning the scene, and he couldn't stop the cynic in him from making it a catastrophe.

Idly, he wondered if she were doing this on purpose, testing her hold on him. Seeing how long he would wait before he forced open the door and carried her out over his shoulder. Or something equal, but Dan. More loquacious, less ancient Greek deities.

Words seemed constantly frothing up his throat, forced back only by the tightness of his nerves. Tension, doubts, and immeasurable happiness had beaten his rambling, pragmatic side into submission. But nothing could deter the ceaseless motion of his thoughts.

He kept waiting for her to change her mind.

Even now, with nothing but the state of her hair separating them from the most important moment of their lives, Dan had trouble believing. Fifteen minutes after she opened that door, they would be married. Fixed together, forever.

He was every bit as disbelieving as he had been the moment she swept into the loft, flushed, suitcases in tow, twisting his heart with, _I can't do this_; mending it in an instant with _let's run away_; so perfectly Blair as she rolled her eyes, _Paris, Humphrey. It's only romantic if we go to Paris_. Breathless and nervous and trying to hide it.

Exactly as Dan felt waiting for her to emerge, Blair-ed up to perfection.

It wasn't Paris where they settled into a small, clean Bed and Breakfast, but a forgotten town several hours into the French countryside. He was all nerves as she found a seamstress by word of mouth and commissioned a label-less French original. He questioned his haste—second-guessed Blair's—as she tweaked and shaped the dress design for the better part of three days.

(_A trifle_, Blair assured him. _Do you know how long couture would take? Besides,_ came the clincher,_ if we'd waited for our wedding date, it'd still be three months away._

Dan reminded her you couldn't add three months to an eternity.)

Blair hadn't let him kiss her in days. He yearned to touch her again, feel warm and unsettled and full as her lips brushed his. But even so, nothing matched the anticipation of knowing her mouth would soon form promises intended solely for him.

He sank back into the leather chair and closed his eyes. Listened to the faint _pop_ of something—lipstick, he was sure—uncapped a room away. Pictured the practiced sweep of Blair's wrist, the dab of her finger, the press of her lips as she completed a ritual that was second nature. Wished he were in the room with a snide remark, even as she watched him watch her mouth.

Dan again resorted to studying the French countryside. Writer's inner monologue be damned.

It was there that she found him.

He didn't know how he missed the door creak open. He could have sworn his ears were attuned to Blair primping, but her last efforts at smoothing her dress—and even the gentle rustle of her approach—were lost to him.

Her footsteps paused as she caught a creaky floorboard, and Dan blinked himself to reality.

"Finally," he groaned, sarcasm masking the sudden speed of his pulse as he realized, _it's real; it's happening_.

He turned.

He had seen her face a thousand times that morning; the day before; every one of the days leading up to this, their wedding day. But somehow, it had a new cast. As if the dress, the word—_marriage_—had gotten caught in her eyes and transformed her. Not into someone else, a goddess with Blair's face, a princess in his fairytale. But into _her_, somehow more than she'd ever been.

Before he'd only dreamed of their future. Now he could see every minute written in her smile.

Expectant.

(_the curve of her cheek_)

Tangible.

(_teeth peeking out to score soft lipstick)_

Here.

(_white smile, white pearls, white gown, radiating against the dim color of their surroundings_)

His eyes swept her face, her form, the carefully careless set of her stance.

Dan's heart ached as he met her eyes and saw self-doubt buried beneath the layers of confidence. He didn't know how she managed insecurity on a day like this, but his whole body lightened as his expression melted it from the set of her shoulders.

And then she stood before him, as he stood before her. Just Blair and just Dan. Wearing clothes that cost more than he could imagine and less than she ever thought she'd tolerate. One room over from the judge who would marry them in broken English, as Blair pretended she wasn't cringing and Dan gave up wishing they'd just gone to Scotland.

Dan and Blair.

In their wedding best.

Dan opened his mouth to speak, found it dry. Cleared his throat, and managed a half-sound.

Blair's grin was smug, eyes pleased.

"See, Humphrey?" she teased, dress swishing as she moved forward to pat his shoulder. "You should know by now that I'm always right."

"Or so you keep trying to convince me," he managed, and just like that the world was right.

Blair reached up to brush lint—imaginary, Dan was sure—from his lapel. It felt more a caress, but Dan didn't begrudge her the pretense.

"And yet I despair of you learning," she was clearly attempting a deadpan expression, but a smile kept creeping back onto her face.

Her hand dropped from his chest to tangle in her skirts, and Dan felt a surge of contentment as light caught the ring on her left hand.

It was more delicate—_smaller_, his self-deprecating side corrected the Idealist—than other rings to grace that finger. But decidedly Blair in a way the others—neon signs of prestige and affection—had not. On that point, Dan the writer and Dan the kid from Brooklyn agreed.

Blair followed his line of sight, gave an affectionate eye roll. He knew she would never admit how attached she'd grown to the delicate swoops and intricate lines, the simply cut diamond in its antique setting. She thought he would never let it go, and likely he wouldn't. Still, he sometimes caught her studying it when she was sure no one would notice.

"Now," Blair refocused him on the present, "Are we going to get married, or not?"

As though she were not the cause of a nearly two-hour delay.

But her sentiment was more important than her posturing, as it always was.

Dan smiled, extended an elbow. The weight of doubt resettled on him as she slid her arm into the crook.

"Blair," he placed his hand over hers on his arm, turned to face her, "Are you sure about this?"

Dan never would stop shooting himself in the foot.

"What do you mean?" she asked, wary and hesitant.

_This moment? This decision? This life with me?_

The joy on her face dimmed. The last thing he wanted.

"It's just," Dan struggled to put his thoughts, his fears, into words. Finally settled, "You planned out your prom _years_ in advance."

Blair blinked in surprise. That had not been what she was expecting. Her brow furrowed in confusion, but her eyes were limpid.

Dan paused. Sighed.

"I've just always pictured you getting married in a massive church with half of New York in attendance."

It was her fears and his, wrapped into one discordant sentence.

"My last church wedding didn't work out so well," she said softly.

Her lips caught, hesitant.

"If you recall, Chuck and Louis spent twenty minutes trying to outdo each other with promises of devotion. Though neither one noticed when I slipped out the back."

Her voice was rueful, a little petulant.

Once, the words might have made him feel inadequate. Second-rate, second-choice, shoved out of sight of a world that rejected him. But he knew Blair. He'd learned her slowly over the years.

Friend. Lover. Cherished companion.

Dan understood.

He had worried this was a reaction, a snap decision as the stress of their engagement culminated. But her voice echoed his feelings.

_I didn't want anyone to ruin this_.

"This seemed more us," Blair finished, a long pause later.

Dan and Blair, standing together in a tastefully old-fashioned courthouse, lost in the French countryside. Still undecided on where they would live, or which flowers would grace the society wedding she refused to cancel. Unable to agree, even in the eleventh hour, on whether Blair would hyphenate her name or take his.

An odd mixture of spontaneous and planned, traditional and not.

Somehow, it seemed the perfect vantage point to view their relationship.

Dan stood transfixed. Captivated by her, past and present, with more than hopes for the future.

His fingers slid around her waist, down her back, brushing a long row of buttons that filled him with anticipation as he pulled her forward for a kiss.

"_Dan_," she fairly squealed, twisting so he caught her chin instead. "You've already _seen_ me. I'm not letting you ruin this, too."

He rolled his eyes, chuckled against her throat. Her sharp intake brought a devious smile to his lips. His mouth brushed a slow line to her collarbone, Dan taking delight in her lack of reprove. Hoping he'd momentarily robbed her of thought.

Then he straightened, slid her hand from his arm to tangle their fingers.

Blair hesitated, then leaned forward to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. Not quite his lips, but not his cheek either. A concession.

When she pulled back, her mouth cradled a soft smile.

"I love you, you know."

Sometimes, he wasn't sure he did until she reminded him.

"I love you, too," his tone captured all he hoped his vows would say. "Now, _Waldorf_," he teased, and she leveled a halfhearted glare, "Let's go get married."

(_They did_).

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Well then. That's that. With all this wedding business going on right now, I just needed to get this out of my system. No Chuck, no Louis. No Serena being jealous or family meddling. Just Dan and Blair. As it should be.

Please take the time to comment. I always hate everything I write until reviewers convince me otherwise, so I'd take any thoughts you're willing to share as a kindness. Even if you dislike it, specifics that will help me improve would be greatly appreciated. I hope it put you in the Dair spirit, either way!


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